


What a Lucky Duck

by VioletThePorama



Series: Lucky Duck [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Basically what if Louie also inherited that luck, Family, Fluff, Gen, Glorious amounts of luck, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Louie panics, luck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21864070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletThePorama/pseuds/VioletThePorama
Summary: “I’m fine,” Louie said, and hesitated in taking the items. “I didn’t get hurt at all, actually.”“Oh,” Della responded, not sounding all that surprised as she dumped the items into his arms. “That’s pretty lucky, isn’t it?”“I was thinking it’s more because I see all the angles,” Louie quoted back. “I can think ahead, like you do.”She gave him a once over and stiffly waved her injured arm to draw attention to it. “Even I can’t think my way out of a cave in, Louie."Or, what if Louie took after Gladstone a bit more?
Series: Lucky Duck [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582435
Comments: 16
Kudos: 273





	What a Lucky Duck

When Louie became lucky, it was in slow steps that initially, even he hadn’t noticed. For a long time, he was still the one on adventures who got the short end of the stick. The youngest of the Duck triplets was chased, captured, and the one who usually set off traps. At first, being able to map out the angles of an adventure didn’t mean anything, not when the group was being chased, and all that Louie could think about was getting home alive. Eventually though, something changed. 

Figuring out how to avoid traps became easier, and even though it seemed that his brothers and Webby had already figured that out long before him, it was freeing to be able to walk into a situation as carefree and as sure as they were all the time. Slowly but surely, adventures became more exciting, and he was able to get more into each one as they scoured old ruins and lost cities for treasure and secrets. Plus, he had the added bonus of being able to keep up with the others and show off to his mom or Uncle Donald whenever they attended an adventure. 

Before long, it was the others who would set off traps. Louie didn’t think much of it, as Dewey and Webby were the usual instigators, and the ones who usually got into trouble when he wasn’t. 

At first, Louie was sure that he was just improving at being an adventurer. He could keep up with the others and help take extra treasure for his newly reopened Louie-Inc. It was only when he stopped tripping traps at all that he began to doubt himself. 

When that doubt really surfaced, was on an adventure in a cave. He hadn’t paid much attention to the lore, leaving that to the nerdier ones in the group, but the stakes were all the same as usual- some hidden prize heavily sought after by explorers, or something like that. It was all going as expected, up until the cave in.

Webby had yelled to alert them to the cave in from where she stood near Huey, and the rest of the group had turned tail and raced for the bigger part of the cave that had more support, where they could regroup and hope that the destruction didn’t branch out that far. They got out alive, but not unscathed. 

Louie, while he had been one of the furthest from the bigger cave when Webby shouted about the cave in, had made it out without a scratch. He was excited and pumped up on adrenaline, and had turned to talk about it to his nearest sibling (or honorary sibling), only to be stopped by the sight of Dewey leaning against one of the walls and looking pained. The others were rubbing at scrapes and bruises. 

Webby had gotten scraped up all along her arms by the falling pebbles, and Huey wasn’t much better off, bruising and scraped, though he seemed more concerned over Dewey, who , according to Webby, had tripped and had fallen back a few feet, needing to be helped the rest of the way to the cave. Even Louie’s mom and Uncle Scrooge seemed worse for wear, and Scrooge carefully checked over everybody else while Della tended to Dewey. 

After everybody was seen to, it was declared that Dewey had a fractured, if not broken ankle, and that Della had probably sprained her wrist. 

Louie was the only one completely fine. Not even a pebble had touched him. 

“Hey Louie,” His mom greeted after a while, walking over to join him where he sat. She cradled in her good arm a granola bar and a water. “Here, you can have these. I wanted to make sure you didn’t get too hurt, but you look fine to me.”

“I’m fine,” Louie said, and hesitated in taking the items. “I didn’t get hurt at all, actually.” 

“Oh,” Della responded, not sounding all that surprised as she dumped the items into his arms. “That’s pretty lucky, isn’t it?”

“I was thinking it’s more because I see all the angles,” Louie quoted back. “I can think ahead, like you do.”

She gave him a once over and stiffly waved her injured arm to draw attention to it. “Even I can’t think my way out of a cave in, Louie. Now then…” She stood up and ruffled the feathers on the top of his head. “I’m going to go check on Dewey, are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah, I… Wait!” Louie stepped after his mother quickly, stopping her before she turned to go. She gave him a smile and waited. “What did you mean by  _ lucky _ ? Like-?”

“You know your cousin Gladstone, don’t you?” She asked. “He never got hurt during adventures like this either. I doubt you’re  _ that _ lucky, but it’s interesting to think about, isn’t it?”

Louie didn’t answer, and watched as she went back to where the others were situated. Joining them was probably the smartest idea at the moment, as they were at a dead end in getting to the treasure. But his thoughts were stuck on the word,  _ luck _ , and how much everybody else in his family hated it. 

His brothers and Webby wouldn’t care, other than maybe to get his help in winning some games, but Uncle Scrooge vehemently hated the idea of luck and constantly voiced how  _ hard word _ was the only way to get anywhere in life, and Uncle Donald hated it with as much fiery passion as he could hate anything, when he had so much bad luck ruining everything he did. 

Dread pooled in his gut, if he were really lucky like Uncle Gladstone… 

Louie wished that it was just him getting better at adventuring, like the others had, but he had to admit that his mom had a point. Everything he’d done recently had been pretty lucky, and just a week prior he’d walked through a trap that had practically  _ waited _ for him to step away before it went off. At the time, he and Huey had chalked it up to the device being old with centuries of disuse. 

Another look at Dewey told him that maybe it was time to face the facts. And once he did that, it was time to test them. 

_______________________________________

The adults decided to hold off on continuing the adventure, and they all returned back to McDuck Manor, where Dewey was rushed off to the hospital for x-rays, accompanied by a worried Della and a livid Donald. The rest of them got their scrapes and bruises checked over a second time, and Louie walked past them to his room, where he pooled together about $40. The next day, while the others were still resting, and Dewey was utilizing being babied to watch TV and have drinks brought to him, Louie called to a distracted Mrs. B that he was going to the arcade, and left. 

The duckling brought his phone with him, in case he accidentally freaked out Uncle Donald by being gone after Dewey had gotten hurt. For the most part, though, he wanted to test out the working theory of his luck. 

Some of the money he brought with him went into the bus fare, and another portion of it went into getting into Funso’s. He brought his own tokens to save some money, and went straight to the arcade zone. Louie looked around for the most rigged machines he knew of, and then stepped over to one of the ‘Wheel-of-Fortune’ machines. Huey had once mapped out exactly when to press the button to stop the spinning and theoretically hit the jackpot every time, but timing it was difficult, and there were more important things to focus on at the moment. 

Louie pressed a token into the machine, spun it, and then stopped it at random. The wheel slowed down, and the sound effects  _ dinged _ with every rotation, until… It slowed to a stop, and hit the jackpot. 

He stood frozen as a bundle of tickets poured from the machine. It took a surprisingly long time for all of them to be printed out, and he had to wait before trying again, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. 

Sure enough, the next spin hit the jackpot again. Not one to be wasteful, Louie waited and collected the tickets. When he finally stepped away, a little girl ran up to try it, but only managed 5 tickets. 

Only  _ his _ spins had won the jackpot, and his brief excitement was dampered by the knowledge that everybody else would see it as cheating.

Louie looked around for another place to try his luck, ignoring the tremor in his hands as he walked over to a claw machine. 

While he knew they worked occasionally, and that Dewey himself had once gotten a stuffed bear from one, Louie had never managed to get something from it before. He had long passed them off as ‘money wasters’, but in went a token. Louie maneuvered the claw over one of the topmost animals and waited. To his amazement (and disappointment), it picked up the toy and dropped it into the prize box. He took it out and stared at the dumb little frog he’d gotten before trying again. 

The next time, Louie didn’t even try for one of the toys. The duckling just closed his eyes and moved the stick, pressing the  _ grab _ button at random. And then, there was the  _ clack _ of something falling into the prize box. 

Again and again, Louie tried and succeeded, getting toy after toy until he was low on tokens, and a staff member was walking over to him. He grabbed his tickets and an armful of the toys before he bolted. 

Louie left Funsos in a rush, and only stopped a few streets away from it, ducking into a store so he could resituate the toys he had grabbed. He pulled out his phone and texted Uncle Gladstone who, luckily enough, was in town. Ten minutes later, after Louie had dumped the toys into a grocery bag that a nice store clerk had given him, he walked down to meet his uncle at a cafe inside a bookstore. They happened to be having a sale, and he got himself a half-off cookie as he waited. 

Moments later, Gladstone walked in.

“Hey Green-bean,” The gander greeted, strolling past the cries of  _ one thousandth customer _ !, and joining his nephew at one of the tables. Louie eyed him as Gladstone was given a complimentary coffee. “Where’s your brothers?”

“They’re at Uncle Scrooge’s mansion. It’s just me.”

“... Alright. Why’d you call me then?”

Louie stuffed what remained of his cookie into his mouth and pulled the bag of toys closer to his side. He looked at his uncles face, finding some semblance of concern there, but mostly, Uncle Gladstone looked easygoing and unworried. 

Louie was jealous. 

“I’m lucky. Like you.”

There was a short pause before Uncle Gladstone let out a bark of laughter. “That’s a good one, Louie. But there’s only one of me.”

“ _ Really _ ,” Louie stressed, and showed him the bag. “I got all of this at an arcade. The machines just  _ gave _ them to me.”

Gladstone paused again and peered at him a bit closer. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! I’m lucky! Del- Mom said so. I haven’t set off a trap in weeks, and I’m the only one not getting  _ hurt _ on adventures,  _ and _ -!”

Uncle Gladstone took his hand, murmuring for him to slow down, and Louie cut himself off. He was hyper aware that he had been yelling at some point, and that one or two of the other patrons were looking. The duckling hunched in on himself, hugging the bag of toys closer.

“I don’t know about all that, Green-bean, but I do know a way to test this one, okay?”

Louie nodded and got up to follow his uncle. They went to a nearby store and Gladstone pointed to the lottery ticket station. 

“If we’re lucky, there’ll be an announcement of winning cards in a few minutes,” Gladstone told him, and Louie nodded. His uncle sent him off with money, stepping back so his luck would be less likely to affect the duckling. Before he even had to use the money, a card with the numbers still concealed blew over from the edge of the trashcan. He picked it up and raced back over to Gladstone, who gave him a coin to rub the shiny plastic off while his uncle pulled up the website. They didn’t have to wait more than five minutes before the numbers were read off. 

The duckling compared the ticket and the winning numbers, and then froze. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Louie said, shaken. 

“I have to agree with you there, kiddo,” Uncle Gladstone said. “Do you want the money?”

Louie shook his head and turned to bury his face into Gladstone’s side. His uncle got up, holding Louie and the bag full of toys, and handed the ticket off to a passing customer, who whooped in excitement and raced out of the store, leaving their cart unattended. 

The two ducks went to sit on a bench outside, and Louie wiped his face. 

“What do I do?” He asked, voice wavering. 

“You’ll make the best of it,” Uncle Gladstone shrugged. “You like making money, don’t you? It isn’t all that hard with luck on your side.”

“But Scrooge says…”

“It isn’t Scrooges luck. Who cares what the old man says about it?”

Louie did. He hesitated. “But… Uncle Donald says that…”

Gladstone didn’t have an answer for that concern, and the duckling curled up. 

After a while, Gladstone pulled the bag of toys over. When Louie looked up, he gave him an apologetic grin. “Do you really like any of these? We can give away any you don’t.”

“What?” Louie sniffed, glancing at the bag. “Like… To a charity or something?”

“Yeah, sure. It isn’t too hard to find some place with a donation box, or a store that’ll take them, is it?”

“I guess not…”

So they went through the toys. They were all cheaply made stuffed animals and dolls, but Louie ended up snatching some sort of round, green, morphless blob that wasn’t very clearly anything. H stuffed it into his pocket, along with all the tickets that he needed to cash in, and went with Gladstone to find a place to donate the toys to. They happened upon a donation bin inside a restaurant, where they also got free milkshakes. 

“My treat,” Said Gladstone. 

“ _ My _ treat,” Louie grinned back. 

Eventually, once they were outside again, and on the dregs of their drinks, Louie got a text alerting him that dinner was within the next hour. When he looked up, Gladstone was watching him with an unreadable expression

“You gotta go, kid?”

Louie nodded. 

“I’ll take you back,” His uncle said, and Louie nodded. As they walked, and even while they were on the bus, Louie was aware of Gladstone looking down at him every once in a while. Once Louie was ready to get off at his stop, Gladstone put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t rely on it too much, alright?”

“... Okay.”

“And a free tip- sometimes if I stand too close to double D, my luck sort of fizzes out.”

Louie blinked and nodded quickly. Then he was left at his stop, and his uncle went on without him. 

He sat through dinner quietly, and sat in the seat closest to Donald, switching places with Webby. It got him an odd glance or two, but no comments. 

What luck. 

_______________________________________

Louie spent the next few days following Uncle Donald around whenever the duck didn’t have work. He helped out with the houseboat some, but mostly sat off to the side playing games on his phone while Donald talked on the phone and went through catalogs for available jobs. The duckling stuck around even when his uncle tried to shoo him off, ignoring his uncles words in favor of focusing more on whatever game he was playing and hoping that his winning streak wasn’t just because of his luck. That maybe Louie was actually  _ good _ at something without the need for some outside force to help him along. 

Sticking around Uncle Donald  _ might _ have been helping him, but he felt no different. Without anything happening to make it blatantly obvious either way, he couldn’t tell whether or not his luck was ‘ _ fizzing out _ ’. 

“Why aren’t you with your brothers?” His uncle croaked at some point into the third day that Louie set up near him. When Louie glanced at his uncle, he was met with a concerned look. 

“They’re still hanging out with Dewey whenever Webby isn’t having her friends over,” Louie disregarded, and then in some effort to sound less despondent, he mustered up a smile. “I just wanted to be with you for a while. Watch some hard work, and stuff.”

“Alright,” Uncle Donald nodded, and Louie gave him a quick glance, finding that the concerned look had been overtaken by a fond smile. His uncle went back to painting the walls while Louie set his phone down and opened up the umbrella for shade. “Have you reopened Louie-Inc yet?”

Louie leaned forward. “Yeah! I have, actually. It’s still in the works,” The duckling explained, and went on to describe his next plot, and how it wasn’t  _ really _ a plot, to his uncle while Donald painted. 

But he couldn’t stay by Donalds side forever. Before too much longer, his mom corralled them into going to see a movie to keep them from going stir-crazy while Dewey was on the mend. Louie was doing fine, and he knew that Webby could make due with Violet and Lena, but apparently Huey had been getting more restless and agitated recently. 

Along for the movie were Webby’s friends, who mostly kept to talking to her, and Launchpad, who carried Dewey along and went wherever his brother in blue wanted to go. Everybody chatted around him while Louie typed on his phone. He only joined in the conversation when he noticed his mom has been giving him an unreadable look, so he listened for a moment and jumped into the speculating on whatever monster of the week they had stumbled upon. 

The movie they were going to see was rather lackluster, but their mom hadn’t approved of the PG-13 horror movie,  _ Lights On _ , that they had actually  _ wanted _ to see. Della was cool, sure, but when she wasn’t being too irresponsible, she was being too responsible. 

Louie was a bit nervous. He wasn’t around Uncle Donald, and his luck could kick in at any given moment. His fears were temporarily assuaged when nothing eventful came up during the car trip, and he continued the conversation, adding a comment on his favorite treasure that they’d come across. For a moment, he wasn’t even concerned about somebody realizing that he was lucky, because even though his mom had first suggested it, she hadn’t seemed at all concerned about it. 

It wasn’t until they were walking into the theatre that things went downhill. As they walked in, with Louie strategically placing himself towards the middle so it was harder to single him out for trouble, a person walked past and bumped into him. Then they stepped back and gave Louie a startled look. 

“Sorry. I’ll- Oh, here!” They said, shoving a bundle of tickets into his hands. “My group isn’t showing up to this, and it’ll go to waste otherwise. 

Louie looked down at them, finding the tickets to be printed out for the PG-13 movie they had originally wanted to see. “Wait!” He tried, but the person had already left. 

Suddenly dewey was being into his personal space, held over by Launchpad. “What are they?” The blue duckling asked, and Louie moved to hide it from him, a bit too late. 

“Woah! It’s tickets to that horror movie we were gonna see!” He turned, flailing dramatically in Launchpads hold. “Mom! Mom we  _ have _ to go see it! You heard them! The tickets will go to waste if we don't.”

Huey stepped over and peered at the papers, and Louie stepped away from him, only to bump into Violet and Webby, who were giving him inquisitive stares. 

“How many tickets are there?” Huey asked. 

“Eight,” Louie choked out after a moment of staring at the bundle in his hands. 

Huey scratched his head. “That’s enough for all of us to go.”

“No,” Della sighed, stepping over. “I thought we agreed to go see the new  _ Duckney _ movie-”

“But none of us actually want to see that one,” Dewey whined, and murmured of agreement rose from the group. Launchpad shrugged, and Lena seemed more interested in Louie’s panicked expression than she was agreeing with them, but Louie’s attention was on his mom, who turned to give him a stern look. 

“Besides,” Dewey was stressing. “We need to respect the wishes of whoever gave those to us-”

“It’s pretty lucky that you got those, isn’t it?” His mom asked, and Louie clutched the papers tighter, unsure of how to respond. He couldn’t tell if she was mad or not, or if he was going to get in trouble for something he hadn’t even  _ meant _ to do. The green duckling just wanted to throw them away and go see the kid movie instead, but Della looked upset enough to set off thoughts of panic in his mind.

She knew what was up. She knew he was lucky and when he opened his mouth to talk nothing came out-

So he turned, shoved the papers at Webby, who grinned and looked at the tickets excitedly, and then bolted towards the sidewalk to be  _ away _ from them. 

Distantly, he heard his name shouted, but Louie kept running. He rushed through a crosswalk that just happened to turn safe for walking as he barreled on past it, and through a crowd that seemed to carve a path just for him. 

Louie only stopped when he ran into somebody, somebody who was tall and dressed in green and let out a surprised yelp of his name. Louie threw his arms around his uncle and sobbed into his shirt. After that, time passed a bit weirdly. The duckling was aware that Uncle Gladstone was talking to somebody on the phone, and then being led (and carried) somewhere, but not who he had been talking to, or where they were going. 

Then there was Uncle Donald. Louie let go of Gladstone and transferred over to his other uncle, who set him down on one of the beds in the houseboat, pushed into a dark room and over to the side with some other furniture to make room for constant repairs and redecorating. 

He stayed still until Uncle Donald left, and then rolled onto his side. Louie took a few calming breaths, like Huey would have told him to do, and listened to what was going on in the other room. 

“-Talked to you about anything?” Gladstone asked, but Louie had only heard the tailend of the question. 

“No,” Uncle Donald said, and Louie had to strain his ears to make out what was being said. A lot of how he understood Donald was visually, so continuing to lay down would just make it harder on himself. 

Louie got up and crept over to the door, peeking out at the two adults. Uncle Donald was switching between giving Gladstone annoyed glares, and giving the mostly closed door to the room Louie was in, worried looks. 

“What should he have talked to me about?”

“He’s got my luck,” Gladstone revealed, and Uncle Donald’s glare lost some of its worry and picked up some anger. “Really, the kid tracked me down and we tested it.”

“Sure you did,” Donald responded, and Louie cringed back at the tone. He was a bit hurt at how quickly his uncle had disregarded the idea that he could have had luck. “Just tell me while  _ you _ of all people-” He pointed at Gladstone’s chest. “- brought him back from the movies.”

“The kid ran off from Della, apparently, and ran straight into me. Pretty lucky, if I do say so myself,” Gladstone said pointedly. Louie looked back to Donald, waiting for a response. 

Instead, he got a question. “Why was he running?”

“He got upset? Dell’ said that some guy handed Louie tickets for a movie they wanted but weren’t going to see, and Green-bean panicked and ran off.”

“He got  _ handed _ tickets?”

“I told you he was lucky!”

Louie really,  _ really _ tried not to, but he was biting back tears at the argument, and he must have made a noise, because suddenly Uncle Donald was walking back towards the room the duckling was in. It was like his uncle had some sort of sixth sense for it. Louie bolted for the bed, but he was only to the edge of it by the time the lights were flipped on. 

“Ah sh- crap. Was he listening?” Uncle Gladstone asked, and his angrier uncle muttered something in response before Gladstone went on. “Hey kid, we thought you were still asleep.”

“I- I was,” Louie tried lying. Uncle Donald walked over and sat on the bed with him. 

“You aren’t in trouble,” Came the first assurance, and Louie nodded and looked down. “Why were you running from Dell- from your mom?”

The duckling shook his head and clutched the bedsheets. 

“You know it isn’t safe to be running while upset like that. My cousin told me you weren’t looking where you were going-”

“Don’t throw me under the bus,” The cousin in question huffed. 

Louie looked up when Donald laid a hand over his. Then he sniffed and tried not to let the tears spill. “Well… I’m lucky.”

The sentence didn’t get the huff of anger or even amusement that Uncle Donald had graced it with when the information had come from Uncle Gladstone. Instead, he just looked thoughtful. 

“Are you?” 

Louie nodded. “I tested it. I won those rigged arcade games, and everywhere I go there’s discounted stuff. I won a lottery ticket, but we gave it away and- are you  _ mad _ ?” He asked despite himself. 

“Why would I be mad?” Uncle Donald asked in return. 

“You  _ hate _ luck. You and Uncle Scrooge say...” Louie trailed off and glanced at Gladstone, but the gander had stepped back and was trying to look busy with something else. “You’re always mad at  _ him _ about it.”

His uncle looked surprised, and a flash of guilt made its way into his expression before Uncle donald schooled his face. He spoke the next words slowly, like he did when he tried to make people on the phone understand him better. “I’m annoyed at Gladstone because he’s irresponsible with his luck.”

“How do you know I’m not?” Louie challenged, sounding braver than he felt. 

“Because I  **know** you,” Donald said. “And even if you were awful with it, I would still love you.”

Louie nodded. Then he hugged his uncle, pressing against his shirt. He heard Gladstone’s footsteps and an amused snort before Uncle Donald huffed. Then Uncle Gladstone spoke up. 

“I’ll be around kid. See you later.”

Louie mumbled a muffled goodbye into Donalds shirt, and stayed there until he eventually fell asleep, worries assuaged. He would probably end up calling his green-clad uncle for advice in the future, but if he could try to be responsible with it… 

It would be fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you thought!


End file.
